Siccar Point woos buyers with 600 million boe reserves, tax incentive

3 Min Read

LONDON (Reuters) - North Sea oil and gas producer Siccar Point is wooing potential buyers of its assets with just under 600 million barrels of oil equivalent (boe) of discovered resources and a $2 billion tax incentive in Britain, a sale document showed.

Siccar Point, headed by a former Centrica executive and backed by private equity firm Blue Water Energy and Blackstone, sees its output reaching about 80,000 boe per day (boed) by about 2027, the sale document showed.

Consultancy WoodMackenzie has valued the portfolio at about $2 billion, but an industry source said that was too high.

Siccar Point closed the acquisition of OMV’s British North Sea portfolio for $870 million in 2017.

The deal included a further $125 million once a final investment decision on Rosebank field is reached. Since then, Siccar point has invested more in its portfolio of assets.

Siccar Point now produces just over 10,000 boed. Beyond this, output will mainly be boosted by the Cambo development.

Among other smaller stakes, Siccar Point holds 70% in Cambo field alongside Royal Dutch Shell, 11.8% in BP-operated Shiehallion field and 20% and 9%, respectively, in Equinor-operated Rosebank and Mariner fields.

The portfolio offers production and exploration opportunities in the West of Shetlands area, where majors like BP, Shell and Equinor are boosting North Sea production.

Overall, however, the North Sea has seen majors exit and smaller private-equity backed players enter over recent years.

Siccar Point would offer a potential buyer $2 billion in so-called tax losses in Britain, which would “shelter profits with no tax payments expected until (the) late 2020s,” according to the sale document sent to potential buyers.

Such incentives offered by the government are common among North Sea producers, which suffered losses after the last oil price crash that saw the Brent crude benchmark slump to below $30 a barrel in 2016. They can make aging fields more attractive to investors.

Reuters reported in July that Siccar Point was looking for buyers for its assets.

Investment bank Rothschild and Lambert Energy Advisory are running the sale process for Siccar Point, according to the document and sources.